1. Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to a novel Internet-based method of and system for educating consumers and marketing products and services thereto within physical and electronic retail environments.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Presently, an enormous amount of time, money and effort is expended daily by thousands of manufacturers and retailers to market, brand, advertise and sell their products and services to consumers in both regional and global markets. Prior to the creation of the World Wide Web (WWW), based on the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and the Hypertext Transmission Protocol (HTTP) invented by Tim Berners-Lee, et al., conventional marketing and advertising systems and methods used in print, radio, and television based communication mediums to communicate messages to consumers in the marketplace.
Since the development of the WWW and its enabling information file formats and communication protocols, a number of Internet-based advertising systems and networks have been developed and deployed in the world of consumer product and service advertising and promotion. Examples of commercially-available Internet-based advertising and promotion systems include: the Open Ad Stream™ (5.0) Internet Advertising Sales, Advertising-Management Software Technology And Media Services Network by RealMedia, Inc.; the DoubleClick™ Internet Advertising Sales, Advertising-Management And Media Services Network by DoubleClick, Inc. which employ its proprietary DART™ technology for collecting and analyzing audience behavior, predicting which ads will be most effective, measures ad effectiveness, and providing data for Web publishers and advertisers; the Adfusion™ Integrated Advertising Marketing, Sales and Management System by Adfusion, Inc. which integrates all phases of the media buying process including media research and planning, media inventory and yield management, secure online negotiation, the transaction execution, and tracking and post-campaign reporting; and the Promotions.com™ On-Line Promotion System by Promotions.com, Inc. formerly Webstakes.com, which develops customized online promotions for clients providing technology and consulting services necessary to run the promotions on clients' own Web sites, and offering direct marketing e-mail services using a database of customer profiles.
Recently, two principally different methods have been proposed for providing product information to consumers over the Internet.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,193 to Wellner discloses a system and method for accessing and displaying Web-based consumer product related information to consumers using a Internet-enabled computer system, whereby in response to reading a URL-encoded bar code symbol on or associated with a product, the information resource specified by the URL is automatically accessed and displayed on the Internet-enabled computer system. Current commercial realizations of this general information access technique include the GoCode™ Print-to-Web Information Access System by GoCode, Inc. of Charleston, S.C. While this system and method enables access of consumer product information related information resources on the WWW by reading URL-encoded bar code symbols, it requires that custom URL-encoded bar code symbols be created, printed and applied to each and every physical product in the stream of commerce.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,773 to Hudetz, et al discloses a solution to the problem presented by the system and method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,193. This solution involves the use of a UPC/URL database in order to translate UPC numbers (and other unique codes) read from consumer products by a bar code scanner, into the URLs of published information resources on the WWW relating to the UPC-labeled consumer product.
Like U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,773 to Hudetz, et al, WIPO Publication No. WO 98/03923 discloses the use of a UPC/URL database in order to translate UPC numbers read from consumer products by a bar code scanner, into the URLs of published information resources on the WWW relating to the UPC-labeled consumer product. Current commercial realizations of this general information access technique include: the PaperClick™ Print-To-Web Information Access System by Neomedia Technologies, Inc., of Fort Meyers, Fla.; the AirClic™ Wireless Print-to-Web Media Consumer Product and Service Information Access System by Airclic, Inc. of Blue Bell, Pa.; the Cue-Cat™ Web-based Print-to-Media Product Information Access System by DigitalConvergence, Inc., of Dallas, Tex.; the Qode™ Wireless Print-to-Web Media Consumer Product Information Access System by Qode.Com, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; et al.
While U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,773 and WIPO Publication No. WO 98/03923 both provide an effective solution to the problem presented by U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,193 to Wellner, et al., these prior art references and systems completely fail to recognize or otherwise address the myriad of problems relating to UPC/URL-link collection, management, delivery, access and display along the retail supply and demand chain, which must be first solved in order deliver a technically feasible, globally-extensive, UPC-driven consumer product information system for the benefit of consumers worldwide.
For over a decade, several years before the development of the WWW, both General Electric Information Services (GEIS) division of General Electric (GE) Corporation, and Quick Response Services (QRS), Inc. have maintained independent consumer product information databases based on the retail industry standard Universal Product Code (UPC) numbering system. These consumer product information databases, branded as the GEIS UPC Express® Product Catalog (recently renamed the GPC Express™ UPC Product Catalog), and the QRS Keystone™ UPC Product Catalog, are maintained in large-scale RDBMS that are connected to secure value-added networks, referred to as VANs, as well as the infrastructure of the Internet, and thus are easily accessible by retailers using Internet-enabled client computers. These UPC Product Catalogs contain “supply-side related” information records on millions of consumer products from thousands of manufacturers selling their products to retailers along the retail chain, at wholesale prices, terms and conditions. The supply-side related information contained in these centralized UPC Product Catalogs are locally maintained by the manufacturers (i.e. vendors) using conventional UPC management software, as developed by Intercoastal Data Corporation (IDC) of Carrollton, Ga., and BarCode World, Inc. These manufacturer-managed UPC Product Catalogs are then periodically uploaded to GEIS's and/or QRS's centralized UPC Product Catalogs, using electronic data interchange (EDI) processes carried out between each manufacturer's UPC Product Catalog and the centralized UPC Product Catalog. The purpose of such uploading operations is to update these centralized UPC Product Catalogs with current and accurate pricing and shipping information required by retailers who visit these centralized UPC Product Catalogs, download the UPC Product Catalogs of their manufacturer trading partners (or portions thereof), to review current product offerings and wholesale prices, terms and conditions, and thereafter purchase desired products from the downloaded manufacturer's UPC Product Catalog using conventional EDI-enabled electronic-commerce (EC) transaction techniques. In essence, the primary function of these centralized UPC Product Catalogs is to enable B-2-B EC transactions between retailers and manufacturers (i.e. vendors) so that retailers can maintain a supply of products in their inventories sufficient to meet the demand for such products by consumers along the retain chain.
In addition to such centralized UPC Product Catalogs described above, these network administrators (GEIS and QRS) use information collected from B-2-B EC-transactions enabled by their centralized UPC Product Catalogs, to provide a number of other solutions to problems relating to electronic commerce (EC) merchandising and logistics within the global supply chain. Such ancillary information services include, for example: Sales, Analysis and Forecasting Services providing retailers with information about what products consumers are buying; Collaborative Replenishment Services for determining what products retailers can buy in order to satisfy consumer demand at any given point of time; and Transportation and Logistics Information Services for providing retailers with information about when products purchased by them (at wholesale) will be delivered to their stores. Such information services are offered to retailers on a global basis through VANs and the Internet.
While the above-described supply-chain information management and delivery systems and services collectively cooperate to optimize the process of moving raw materials into finished products and into the hands of consumers, such supply-side information systems fail to address the information needs of the consumers of retail products who require and desire product-related information prior to, as well as after, the purchase of consumer-products. Moreover, such systems and services fail altogether to address the problems facing manufacturer marketing, brand and product managers, and their advertising and promotion agents, as well as retailer marketing and product managers and their advertising and promotion agents working along the demand-side of the retail chain.
Thus, it is clear that there is great need in the art for an improved Internet-based method of and system for collecting, managing, and delivering product related information to the consumers along the retail chain, while avoiding the shortcomings and drawbacks of prior art systems and methodologies.